Jointly published by the Guangzhou Gender Education Center, the verified media account ATSH (Anti-Sexual Harassment), and the China Women’s Film Festival, a recent survey of female journalists’ experience of sexual harassment in the workplace discloses that more than 80% of the respondents have been sexually harassed to varying degrees, and only 3.2% have chosen to report the fact.
More than 80% of respondents suffered from sexual harassment in the workplace
Questionnaires were sent out to 1762 female journalists, and 416 valid questionnaires were returned. 83.7% of those polled reported that they had been sexually harassed in different ways. 42.4% of the reporters claimed to have suffered from sexual harassment more than once, and nearly one fifth (18.2%) of them had been sexually harassed more than five times.
Only two journalists called the police after being sexually harassed
More than half (57.3%) of the journalists surveyed chose to keep silent or endure sexual misconduct for various reasons. What’s worse, only two of them reported what happened to the police. Most of them felt that they had no idea how to deal with such circumstances. Feelings of shame and worries over their job prospects also accounted for their silence.
The respondents were grievously influenced by the sexual harassment they were subjected to, both in terms of their psychological condition and of their future professional careers. More than 60% of the victims felt that their self-esteem had been harmed, and 29 journalists suffered from continuous depression. Ten of the journalists even experienced self-harm or suicide attempts. Sexual harassment also had a negative impact on the journalists’ careers, with 22 of them quitting their jobs or giving up on job transfers.
More than 70% of the perpetrators of sexual harassment were acquaintances of the victims: 40.9% were their superiors and 30% were their colleagues.
